Gucci! Vuitton! Socialism!

We now may have a clue as to why Hollywood stars, super models and some members of the Kennedy family have such apparent affection for the thuggish regime of Hugo Chavez.

It's because Chavez and company wear the most fabulous clothes, darling!

CARACAS (Reuters) - A video of a Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad politician attacking capitalism then struggling to explain how his luxurious clothes square with his socialist beliefs has become an instant YouTube hit in Venezuela.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.

"I don't, uh … I … of course," stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. "It's not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported."

The video is here. I don't speak Spanish, but the guy sure looks like a deer in the headlights when the question hits him. The Reuters article then goes on to claim that the wealthy are driving the demand for luxury goods.

So that makes the socialist hero Interior Minister what exactly? Wealthy? A fraud?

Let's go with the latter.

Unfettered “Journalism” Professors Too Risky

A former NBC News correspondent turned college professor is asking, nay, demanding, that news organizations "regulate" citizen journalists. David Hazinski, who now teaches at the University of Georgia (God help his students) is telling the world that citizen journalists are a hazard. No, really, he is.

You're beginning to get a lot more news … from you.

It ranges from the CNN YouTube debates to political blogs to cellphone video of that sniper who opened fire at an Omaha Mall. These are all examples of so called "citizen journalism," the hot new extension of the news business where the audience becomes the reporter.

Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.

But unlike those other professions, journalism — at least in the United States — has never adopted uniform self-regulating standards. There are commonly accepted ethical principals — two source confirmation of controversial information or the balanced reporting of both sides of a story, for example, but adhering to the principals is voluntary. There is no licensing, testing, mandatory education or boards of review. Most other professions do a poor job of self-regulation, but at least they have mechanisms to regulate themselves. Journalists do not.

Yes, indeed, that is absolutely true. Journalists have no standards. Which is why the professionals at The New Republic can run a patently fabulist story, be confronted by citizen journalists, wait five months and then finally retract it. Or why Reuters can run photoshopped pictures and sell them as the real deal until citizen journalists catch them. Here's a clue, Mr. Hazinski. Get out of your glass house before the return stones arrive. Because they will arrive shortly. The media is not a body that can impose regulation on others. Until very recently indeed, most reporters had no formal training whatsoever - and things seem to have deteriorated since the media began to require the services of professors of journalism.

I think we can see the problem. Unfettered journalism professors with delusions of competence.

UPDATE: Say there, Mr. Hazinski here's a word you should learn: INCOMING!

North Shore Journal: Maybe I don’t want to be tarred with the term “journalist”. It makes me feel dirty, and not the nice dirty either. (Fabulous takedown.)

Hot Air: Actually, citizen journalists usually have to spend some of our time fact-checking the lies coming from the so-called pros. Ever heard of fauxtography, Dr. Hazinski? Google it. You’ll be there a while.

Tigerhawk: There is no small irony here. Insofar as Hazinski's column is possibly the most asinine op-ed published by a newspaper in the history of the universe, it almost succeeds in its argument by dint of its own transporting amateurism. Almost.

Riehl World View: So, the media should monitor and regulate it somehow? I didn't realize they became a government agency when I wasn't looking. Oh wait. Were that true, what's being proposed would be illegal.

Center for Citizen Media Blog: Then, having kindly allowed that this new media “has its place” — use the servant’s entrance, please — he removes it entirely from the realm of journalism, which is literally absurd.

Daily Pundit: Your reputation wasn’t murdered, dummy. It was a victim of suicide.

Pelosi Unhinged

The shattering of the Democrats is apparently taking a toll on Nancy Pelosi. Today she angrily told reporters that Republicans "like" the war in Iraq. Then she backpedaled as fast as she could as soon as she realized what an idiot she sounded like.

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out at Republicans on Thursday, saying they want the Iraq war to drag on and are ignoring the public's priorities.

"They like this war. They want this war to continue," Pelosi, D- Calif., told reporters. She expressed frustration over Republicans' ability to force majority Democrats to yield ground on taxes, spending, energy, war spending and other matters.

"We thought that they shared the view of so many people in our country that we needed a new direction in Iraq," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference in the Capitol. "But the Republicans have made it very clear that this is not just George Bush's war. This is the war of the Republicans in Congress."

Asked to clarify her remarks, Pelosi backed off a bit.

"I shouldn't say they like the war," she said. "They support the war, the course of action that the president is on."

"And that was a revelation to me," she said, "because I thought the American people's voices were so—and still are—so strong in this regard."

Pelosi, who opposed the U.S.-led invasion from the start, said the war was "a catastrophic mistake."

Despite being forced to make concessions on multiple fronts, Pelosi said Democrats have been fiscally responsible and attuned to the public's concerns. As a result, she said, voters will reward Democrats in next year's presidential and congressional elections.

Ah, yes. That would be the fiscally responsible way they are cutting funding and funding increases for existing programs in order to pay for vast amounts of pork. I've said all along that Pelosi and Reid would end up reviled by the rank and file. This is an example of why. How much worse are relations with House and Senate Republicans be after this latest insult. Supporting the war is not the same as liking it - Pelosi knows that or she has been drinking leftist Koolaid to excess. I'm quite sure that House Republicans can make her life even more miserable than they have up until now - and Pelosi just practically begged them to do so.

Ah, yes. That would be the fiscally responsible way they are cutting funding and funding increases for existing programs in order to pay for vast amounts of pork. I've said all along that Pelosi and Reid would end up reviled by the rank and file. This is an example of why. How much worse are relations with House and Senate Republicans be after this latest insult. Supporting the war is not the same as liking it - Pelosi knows that or she has been drinking leftist Koolaid to excess. I'm quite sure that House Republicans can make her life even more miserable than they have up until now - and Pelosi just practically begged them to do so.

Smear, Scapegoat, Repeat

The word scapegoat comes from a historical practice in Judaism where a priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on a goat at Yom Kippur. The goat was then driven away into the wilderness. So it is with Billy Shaheen, who dredged up old news about Barack Obama and attempted a smear job yesterday.

New Hampshire pol, husband of former Gov. Jeanne, quits NH co-chair position over Wednesday’s drug comment about Obama.

“I made a mistake and in light of what happened, I have made the personal decision that I will step down

Obama adviser Axelrod on the resignation: “It was the right thing to do. What he did yesterday was the wrong thing to do. Every campaign ought to send a signal that there’s not going to be a wink and a nod to this kind of activity.”

Maybe sacrificial goat is the right term. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that this was scripted right from the start. The important thing was to get the smear out there, just as Howard Wolfson launched a smear in the very last seconds of Face the Nation. The Clinton campaign had this little dance choreographed right from the get go, so she could 'apologize' while still getting the smear planted.

Like I said earlier. I think this is going to hurt her in the long run, whether she gets the nomination or not.

Rising Stench

Last night I noted a rather transparent move by Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire campaign co-chair that stunk of desperation. Robert Novak today tees off on yet another transparent, below the belt campaign smear by the Clinton camp that only increases the stench of desperation. Novak is merciless here.

David Axelrod, the seasoned Chicago Democratic operative who is chief strategist for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, was taken by surprise in the last minute of CBS's "Face the Nation" on Dec. 2. Howard Wolfson, Sen. Hillary Clinton's spokesman, accused Obama of running a "slush fund." In fact, the Clinton campaign was spreading that story privately months ago.

Last summer, a senior Clinton aide told a famous Democrat believed to favor Obama that the Illinois senator was using his "leadership" political action committee to spread money around the country to grease his presidential prospects. That message was private when Clinton seemed far ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination. It became public when Obama threatened to overtake her.

Before Wolfson spoke out, one of Clinton's close supporters was spreading word of unspecified defects in Obama that should deter Democrats from supporting him. This is the Clinton style that has proved effective for two decades, but Obama has continued to close the gap. This attack mode works best when the accusations are hidden from public view.

Last summer, a few Clinton insiders — headed by her Senate chief of staff, Tamera Luzzatto — paid a presumably social visit to the Cape Cod, Mass., vacation home of a prestigious Democrat reported to be in Obama's corner. Luzzatto warned that Obama was ethically challenged because of his leadership PAC. My sources indicated that this was not an isolated incident and that the slush-fund story was spread widely.

A month ago, a Democrat close to Clinton, though not on her Senate or campaign staff, approached a party activist who has not made a commitment to a candidate with this message: Skeletons in Obama's closet would make him vulnerable if nominated. He did not elaborate and said that the Clinton campaign would keep its anti-Obama information to itself, remembering mutually destructive assaults between Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt in 2004 that facilitated John Kerry's nomination.

The Clinton campaign denied all this, claiming it was a Republican plot. In truth, there was no Republican source for this story. In the wake of these denials, Wolfson made his slush-fund accusation on "Face the Nation" shortly after polls showed Obama passing Clinton for the lead in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses:

Is Hillary this scared or is her campaign this inept? Even if Clinton manages to get the nomination (even though that does not look as inevitable as it used to) she is really taking a terrible risk here. Even party loyalists are more than a bit taken aback by the level of viciousness they see in Clinton. Moves like this, last second ambush attacks make her look pretty unappealing to the uncommitted middle. A candidate that has the kind of high negative ratings that Clinton has cannot afford to alienate a single potential voter. I think this will come back to haunt her, one way or the other.

Turning Over The Rock To Reveal The Pork

As I have said repeatedly, no matter what party you belong to or ideology you believe in, you should be opposed to pork barrel spending. It is bad for the nation, bad for taxpayers and corrupting for the elected officials. Now, thanks to an unlikely set  of alliances and the cooperation of some fairly bitter opponents, we taxpayers can see who is feeding at the public trough. The Office of Management and Budget is unveiling USASpending.gov, a searchable database created with the help of a group strongly critical of the OMB itself. Welcome to strange bedfellow-ville.

Robert Shea is a Republican insider with a head for business and a yen for federal program performance standards. Gary Bass is a government watchdog with a mean bite who wants openness and knows how to get it.

Official antagonists, political opposites, brought together by a wild, crazy idea: federal budget transparency. Online and searchable. Free for the asking.

Today, the White House budget office officially launches USASpending.gov, a Web site that shows taxpayers where their dollars go and which legislators, contractors and regions get the most.

The site was created by Shea, associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. It was modeled on a site pioneered by Bass, director of OMB Watch, one of the budget office's harshest nonprofit critics.

"They were very cooperative and supportive when they recognized we were trying to do the right thing — even before I was paying them," Shea says of OMB Watch.

"Normally, we come to bury Caesar, not praise him," Bass says of Shea. "But they are doing something that's very cool, that's very innovative in government."

The story began late last year, when two other political opposites, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), sponsored legislation requiring the federal government to set up a searchable online database tracing federal budget spending by Jan. 1, 2008.

The goal was to make both the executive branch and Congress accountable for their spending decisions by allowing regular taxpayers to follow the money.

The new website is up and functional. It actually exceeds the requirements of the law, was complete before the deadline and was done on the cheap, especially for a government project. If you want an unembedded link, here it is:

http://www.federalspending.gov/

This is going to be a nightmare for the pork kings, as the Post story explains:

USASpending allows users to search by contracts and grants, contractor names, congressional districts and lawmakers. The data can be easily downloaded and used. A "wiki" function gives users a chance to suggest changes and add information. Charts and rankings show to whom and where the bulk of federal dollars go.

Just in time for the elections. This should be amusing.

Chavez Caught Red-Handed?

US authorities are charging four suspects, three Venezuelans and a Uruguayan, with funneling illegal cash contributions to the Argentinian presidential campaign of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who was sworn in as Argentina's president Monday. The investigation was launched when a Venezuelan businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, was caught at the airport in Buenos Aires in March with $800,000 in cash. The four suspects are alleged to have traveled to Florida to threaten Wilson into silence. They also, charmingly, threatened to kill the man's children.

The four suspects are accused of having traveled to Florida, where Antonini owns a home, to pressure him to conceal the truth about the cash, according to court documents. Two of the men — Carlos Kauffmann and Moisés Maionica — allegedly told Antonini that Argentine and Venezuelan authorities would pursue him if he denied that the funds were his but that he would be protected if he remained quiet.

"Carlos Kauffmann advised Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson that the consequences of Antonini's future actions might put the life of Antonini's children at risk," said the criminal complaint, which was prepared by the FBI. Referring to Venezuela's state oil company, it said, "Moises Maionica advised Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson that PDVSA would pay for all the expenses and financial penalties that Antonini might incur as a result of the seizure of the $800,000."

The four men have been charged with being unregistered foreign agents in the United States. Two of them, including Maionica, have denied the charges, according to the Associated Press. The others have asked for court-appointed attorneys.

Ch¿vez has often voiced his support for leftist candidates, but he has always denied bankrolling their campaigns, despite allegations by some leaders in the region.

"Clearly he has a lot of money and clearly he has a regional political agenda, but there's never been concrete evidence of him supporting campaigns," said Michael Shifter, a Washington-based analyst who closely tracks Venezuelan issues. "I think if this were proven true, and if this were established, then this would be a significant change and would mark a real departure in the conversation up until now."

Chavez makes the mafia look civilized. If this case stands up in court, Chavez will suffer a black eye in the entire region. Even the fact that someone has finally been caught this way indicates trouble for Chavez. Of course, Chavez has enjoyed rather a lot of influence with a certain American with a famous name for quite some time by providing discount oil. And Hollywood stars are even cheaper to influence.

Let The (Finger-Pointing) Games Begin

A page one story in the Washington Post describes the acrimonious finger pointing going on between House and Senate Democrats over failures to pass many pieces of legislation in the past year. The bitterness is becoming very harsh and quite public, with relations between Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid deteriorating rather rapidly. The Post probably makes it sound better than it really is.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.

Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker's "iron hand" style of governance.

Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete.

"If there's going to be a filibuster, let's hear the damn filibuster," Rangel fumed. "Let's fight this damned thing out."

In the past few weeks, the House has thrown wave after wave of legislation at the Senate — on energy, Iraq war policy, the housing and mortgage crisis, and middle-income tax cuts offset largely by tax increases on the wealthy.

Most of it has died quietly, a predetermined fate that both sides could foresee before the first vote was cast. Yet they went ahead anyway. Just last night, the House, for a second time, passed legislation to stave off the growth of the alternative minimum tax, to be paid for by a measure to stop hedge fund managers from deferring compensation in offshore tax havens. Like the previous House version, it has virtually no chance of passing in the Senate.

Much of what the Democrats in the House are complaining about amount to the exact, same tactics the Democrats used over and over to block things in the Republican-controlled Congress. They act as if this is a surprise. They came to power promising bipartisan relations and have, instead, turned everything they touch into a partisan battle without even a hint of trying to gain Republican votes - other than by promising lavish pork-bribery now and then. Instead, they offer theatrics, as even their own party members acknowledge:

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) noted that, this summer, Reid employed just the kind of theatrics Rangel and other House Democrats are demanding, holding the Senate open all night, pulling out cots and forcing a dusk-till-dawn debate on an Iraq war withdrawal measure before a vote on war funding. Democrats gained not a single vote after the all-night antics.

"I understand the frustration; we're frustrated, too," Bayh said. "But holding a bunch of Kabuki theater doesn't get anything done."

The entire reason this nation was set up as a constitutional republic was to avoid the tyranny of the mob, where a slim majority could impose their will over a large majority. For all their talk, bluster and finger-pointing, the Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in both houses of Congress - which should lead them to seek compromise. Instead they have chosen the Kabuki - with really bad makeup. Watching them turn on one another and squabble publicly is another form of theater for those of us watching. The makeup still sucks, though.

UPDATE: This Ain't Hell, But You Can See It From Here has a roundup on this story and a great punchline playing off mine.